Microchip grabs MCU unit lead from MotorolaNews & Analysis 7/7/2003 Post a commentSteve Sanghi likes to think of Microchip Technology Inc. as the Toyota of the microcontroller world.
Like the Japanese auto manufacturer, Microchip, Chandler, Ariz., has built credibility and mass appeal for its 8-bit microcontrollers with bare-bones, low-priced products, gradually mixing in models that offered more features and fetched higher prices.

IBM, Xilinx shun mask programmingNews & Analysis 7/7/2003 Post a commentIn recent years, a number of chipmakers have answered customers' calls to reduce development costs with some kind of fancy mask-programmable part. But IBM Microelectronics and Xilinx Inc. have so far been no-shows to the gate array revival party.

European Commission calls for 35% duty on Hynix DRAMsNews & Analysis 7/7/2003 Post a commentThe European Commission has notified member countries that it has made a final determination that Hynix Semiconductor Inc. should be assessed a duty of about 35 percent on imported DRAMs as a penalty for accepting what the EC found to be illegal Korean government subsidies, according to sources.

Lattice Announces 10 Gbits/s SerDesNews & Analysis 7/1/2003 Post a commentLattice has joined Xilinx in offering an ASSP 10 Gbits/s transceiver. Lattice moved away from its PLD base several years ago when it introduced a series of programmable switches. It followed this with several programmable analog devices. Non-PLD products are still a small part of Lattice's total revenues.